Two ISU faculty members have been doing extra work to lead their respective colleges while the search for new deans goes on.

Pamela White, interim dean of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and Michael Whiteford, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, were asked by Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost Ben Allen to serve in their former deans’ steads.

Interim deans carry all of a dean’s responsibilities, from attending meetings with other administrators and people outside Iowa State to traveling all over the country to stay in contact with alumni of a college, Whiteford said.

“I’ve become part of the administrative food chain,” Whiteford said. “I’m here late, I’m here early … I’m almost always in my office, and when I’m not in my office I’m in a meeting.”

The busy schedule of a dean is far from monotonous, however. “No two days are the same,” White said. “One day I could be in meetings, the next day I could be out on the road.”

Because her schedule is so hectic, White said having a staff, from secretaries to associate deans, keeping her on track and helping plan events is essential to her success.

“[Deans] could never do all of these things on their own. They don’t have enough brain capacity,” she said.

Even though they are busy, White and Whiteford said they enjoy their positions as interim deans.

“Being a part of a group of people who are shaping the destiny of a big college is wonderful,” Whiteford said.

Shaping the destiny of the college also means making sure the college’s day-to-day activities are taken care of, such as ensuring there are enough classes for students and enough professors and lecturers to teach them.

Although both White and Whiteford said they enjoy what they do, they acknowledge everything comes at a price, and accepting the job of interim dean was no exception.

Making the leap from university professor of food science and human nutrition to interim dean required her to shift her focus away from teaching, something she has always loved to do, White said. Her favorite class, Food Science and Human Nutrition 214: The Scientific Study of Food, was taken over by another professor this fall, she said.

Whiteford had been slowly traveling further away from teaching in his former position as LAS associate dean, but he echoed White’s sentiments.

“I miss teaching just whole bunches,” he said.

The class Whiteford normally taught, Anthropology 323: Peoples and Cultures of Latin America, is not being offered this year because it is a specialty course and the rest of the anthropology faculty already had full schedules, he said.

White said the job has been a wonderful opportunity for her, but she doesn’t know if she’d want to become the dean permanently.

Whiteford was nominated to apply for the position of LAS dean late November 2003.

“If [in the end] they offered me the job, in all likelihood I would take it,” he said.

White has been filling in for former Family and Consumer Sciences Dean Carol Meeks since July 1, 2003. Whiteford stepped in for former Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Peter Rabideau Sept. 1, 2003.

New deans for both colleges are expected to be in place July 1.